Skype Blames Windows Update for Outage

Looks like Skype is pretty much back for everyone after the two-day outage that began last Thursday, and now the VoIP provider says it's fingered the cause: a Windows update, and the tidal wave of reboots that ensued.

According to Skype's system status site, the failure (which affected Skype users around the world) happened after "a massive restart of our users' computers across the globe within a very short timeframe…after receiving a routine set of patches through Windows Update." After the multiple restarts, a the service was hit by a "flood" of login requests, starting a "chain reaction" that crashed the network, Skype claims.

Now, I'm no engineer, but doesn't that sound a little odd to you? After all, Microsoft releases Windows patches on a weekly basis (and as far as I know, last week's patch wasn't substantially different from all the others) and Skype hasn't flamed-out before—or at least not for a full 48 hours. Or who knows? Maybe the stars were aligned in just the right way, and millions of Windows users did just happen to restart their systems all at once. Something tells me we'll never know for sure.

Still, regardless of the reason, last week's Skype outage was certainly a wake-up call for VoIP chatters—and especially business users—who rely on the service. My suggestion for surviving future outages? Redundancy. Get accounts set up (free ones, of course) with one of Skype's VoIP competitors, such as Gizmo Project and SightSpeed, so you can switch to one when the other goes down (and make sure your colleagues and/or buddies do the same). That way, the next time every Windows user in the world decides to restart at once and VoIP goes haywire, you won't skip a beat.

Related:
Skype outage caused by download update [Yahoo! News]